


The beauty of controlled chaos

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, General ending spoilers, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-23 23:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20898017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Will graham had somewhat seen an abstract beauty in Hannibal’s violence long before he truly saw the man himself. Now, he could see it clear as day.





	The beauty of controlled chaos

**Author's Note:**

> I made this a few months ago when I first watched (and then rewatched) Hannibal, I just forgot to post it. Not much of a story as much as it is a substitute for the ending we never got, as well as Will’s view of Hannibal before then. Vague but so was the show. 
> 
> This wasn’t meant to be public, but anyway, enjoy~

“It’s beautiful.” Will purred. The table was set with platters of food and wines, all splayed out in a way that made it feel like a crime to disturb, let alone eat. Hannibal looked to Will from across the table and smiled warmly at the compliment. People would frequently compliment Hannibal on what he made, it was warranted with how much time and effort he spent preparing full course meals, often for the purpose of feeding but only a mouth or two. Though it was never the compliments that mattered to him, it was the food itself, the preparation, his passion. But Will’s sent an unfamiliar warmth throughout him that overflowed in his chest and boiled over in his gut, almost too painfully real.

  
“It’s beautiful.” The eye of a man, staring up at god and asking for a purpose, for a truth. Will flipped the printed photos of bodies aligned one by one at the base of a grain mill, color coordinated, leaving smudges where his fingers had greased the page and surveyed the work of a madman. A madman, he could admit. A killer. But someone not unlike himself. A man screaming into the void and asking for nothing but truth and purpose. To see the world from the perspective of knowledge and feel the warmth of knowing what lies beyond this life. To take comfort in knowing he wasn’t alone in a vast and hateful world. Will found some semblance of purpose in his life when he’d met Hannibal. As though he’d been given that sweet and easy peace that the Angel-maker had sought and bestowed, a certain clarity. They weren’t without their differences, Dr. Lecter being the cause for Will’s imprisonment among other things. But the truth hardly ever came without a driving force behind it; pain.

  
“It’s beautiful.” Will conceded. His face was on fire but he didn’t bother trying to put it out. His heart was burning too, in a different way, a flame he wouldn’t attempt smothering in a million years. Blood oozed from the hole in his cheek, torn muscles and sinew that broke deep into his sinuses and bones, pouring forth in red waves onto his shirt. But his mind was busy taking in every feature of the man in his arms, down to the last blood-soaked detail.  
Hannibal had never felt such warmth at those two words before in the entire time he’d been alive. No one had ever given him such relief with so little effort. And Will had never spoken any two words so honestly to anyone before. Their relationship was a chaotic beauty to him, pure and clean.

Blood tainted the water, swirling until it faded into nothing. Salt stung their wounds after their bodies broke the surface of the waves, a sharp slap against their backs that felt like a million splinters.

Will crawled onto the beach, grasping at mushy sand and the pain in his body was hardly a concern at that moment, all things considered. Hannibal wasn’t far behind him, dragging his hands and knees through the water, tearing at the holes in his shirt to free his body of the sopping fabric to see the gashes on his skin. Will collapsed once he’d gotten enough distance between himself and the ocean. Waves lapped at his feet as he laid back, staring up at the sky. Hannibal’s words rang in his head.

“This is all I ever wanted for you, Will.”

He wondered how he hadn’t seen it sooner, the control in Hannibal’s chaos, the rhythm they had fallen into. How their minds fit so perfectly together yet battled for a place of peace alongside one another. He found it terribly, pitifully poetic in a way that would make him laugh, were he capable of it.  
The muscles in his arms spasmed, zapping pain beneath his skin, his fingernails collecting grains as they dug erratically into the sand. His palms further bloodied from crescent-shaped wounds induced by his own nails when the sand fell away. He whimpered at the sensations as they washed over him like the ocean waves.

A hand on his side, firm but gentle, another on his cheek just the same. He gazed up at Hannibal as the blurry image of the other man came into view.

Blood, tears and salt water seemed to congeal around the corners of his eyes. It built up and flowed in droves down his cheeks, gathering at his chin and the dip of his collar bone. He could feel how the water had clogged his ears, falling away slowly into the shell of his ear until the loud static of the sea was an all-too-present sting deep in his eardrums. Hannibal’s fingers ran across Will’s remaining unscathed cheek, his warm palm flat against the soft, damp skin. The tips of his fingers dipping into the familiar dimple at the corner of his mouth. Such a gentle touch which he had found many times in the past to convey a heavy, profound sweetness, despite whom they were attached to. If the better half of Will’s vision would allow it, he’d see Hannibal smiling down at him as though he was his greatest creation. An achievement to top all others. A god-given gift just for him. Or the greatest piece in his collection that he’d boast about to all the guests at his dinner parties, mounted high for all to see or served delicately on a silver platter.

Will couldn’t see the world above him. The dark sky and the face hovering so close faded between the lines and colors. Everything mixing until there were no distinguishable shapes, nothing but sounds and static from the ocean crashing against rocks.

A jolt of pain made him nearly wretch, spreading through his face and sinuses and forehead, down to his neck and collarbone. A deep ache that could hardly be fathomed as it pounded beneath his flesh. His back arched off the wet sand and a hand clasped against his side, steadying him as the waves of pain came and went. He heard a quiet voice beside his ear, nearly a plea, asking him to stay still despite the agony.

“You’re safe now, Will.”

The muscles in his cheek felt like fire beneath his skin, boiling water bubbling just below the surface. It reminded him of being in Hannibal’s kitchen, the time that another blade had doused him in his own fluids and he’d learned that Hannibal Lecter himself was a flame that you couldn’t touch without being engulfed. Will thought it a fitting departure for the two of them. He knew then, you cannot live without a fire.

He dug his nails into the wrist at his side, bracing himself and likely drawing blood at the pressure. Crying up at the sky with shut eyes and teeth bared as the pain took its toll. Tears welled and flowed with his cries, his eyes twitching beneath their lids, every inch of his skin reacting to the immense pain he was in.

“As long as we are together, I’ll keep you safe.”

The accented words nearly slipped past him. He hadn’t given them a second thought as they went in one ear and out the other, nearly drowned out by his own voice, crying itself hoarse.

“-you will never want, as long as you’re with me.”

The pain was hard, but the hardest part was how fitting it was. How beautifully fitting this was to be an end.

“Do you hear me, Will?”

He heard him. He felt him too, as his arms wrapped around Will, lifting him off the beach, his limbs dangling towards the sand and dripping blood into the tiny grains as he was carried.  
He felt the slap of a hard surface against his back, saw the blur of white lights above him. Felt the sting of fluid and cold, silver utensils threading his wounds.  
And he felt a pair of familiar hands as they held his own, even as they dangle limply off the edge of some bed, warm and comforting.

He heard him, hadn’t seen him yet. But he heard him. He knew exactly what the warmth of that voice, that particular tone, meant for him. What it had always meant, good and bad. The future it entailed. And he welcomed it silently and recklessly. Will never considered the beauty of their shared madness, the chaos, but he felt it now, and it was truly breathtaking.

  
_“There’s an ocean inside of me. Put your ear against my chest and listen, it rages for you.”_

_-Johnny Nguyen_

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyy I said vague didn’t I? Should have put “slightly unsettling”. Let me know of any errors.


End file.
